Posts tagged Beauty Blogger

For today’s Valentine’s Gift Ideas post I have put together a gift guide of ten Valentine’s gifts, all of which cost under £10 each. Around this time of year, the prices of romantic gifts, such as chocolate and lingerie, are often hiked up. However, as this guide shows, if you shop savvy you don’t have to spend a fortune to treat that special someone (or yourself!) to something nice. The guide features some traditional gifts, but also fashion and beauty themed items.

Over the last few months I’ve been trialling a hair treatment from a small hair care company called Old Wives Tail. Old Wives Tail specialise in luxury organic hair treatments, all of which are handmade, vegetarian and vegan, and free of gluten, parabens and sulfates. They’re also animal friendly and aim to eradicate animal testing in the beauty industry, so 10% of their profits go to charities which save animals from being tested on.

The treatment I’ve been using is the Jojoba and Clove Organic Oil Treatment, which retails for £13.99 for a 100ml jar. The treatment is described as a ‘hydrating, natural and balancing hair treatment for dull, thinning, brittle or broken hair’. My hair is quite unusual in that, though it can get quite oily at the roots, the ends get very dry and split easily, especially during colder months, and the overall look is very limp, lifeless and damaged. I opted for this particular treatment as, according to the Old Wives Tail website, ‘jojoba oil gets to work at penetrating every hair follicle to add strength, volume and texture to weak, lifeless hair’, which is just what I want.

The treatment has a very strong aroma of cloves, which hits you as soon as you open the jar, but it isn’t too overpowering as it is offset with a slight sweetness. It’s also quite a dense treatment, with a slightly waxy texture, but as it warms in your fingers it melts into a smooth oil that glides through damp hair incredibly easily.

The directions for use say to massage the product into your scalp, and to leave it on for one hour before washing out with shampoo and water, and conditioning the ends of your hair. As a ‘wash and go’ kinda girl, an hour is quite a long time to wait, so this isn’t a treatment I would use on a daily or weekly basis, but it’s great for a fortnightly or monthly pamper session at the weekend. Especially as it gives quite an intense treatment.

I’ve used the treatment a few times now and the results are brilliant. A little goes quite a long way, so though the jar is small, it will last a good while. The product massages in nicely and feels lovely and soothing on the scalp. When I first used it I was slightly worried that, being an oil, it would leave my hair feeling greasy, but it washes out well with shampoo, although I find it takes a little while to wash out completely. After blow drying and straightening my hair, the difference is really noticeable. It leaves my hair looking silkier and fuller, and the result is also long-lasting.

Unfortunately, as I’ve had an incredibly hectic couple of months, I haven’t yet managed to get any before and after photos of my hair, but I will be updating this post within the next week or two, so check back soon.

All Old Wives Tail products are available online here, and they cater for all hair types. They offer free worldwide delivery on any order too!

Naomi x

*This Jojoba & Clove Organic Oil Hair Treatment was sent to me by Old Wives Tail for review purposes. All opinions expressed are honest and my own.*

When it comes to nail products, Barry M are one of my favourite brands, so when they announced a flurry of new shades for Autumn/Winter 2014, I was incredibly excited! As well as adding new colours to their Gelly, Silk, Classic and Aquarium ranges, and releasing some gorgeous Christmas glitters, Barry M have also launched the new Glitterati collection. Glitterati features six ‘blinging’ glitter paints, and they really caught my eye when I first saw them on Instagram.

So far I’ve only picked up three shades from the new selection – Rockstar and Fashion Icon from Glitterati, and the new Aquarium Glitter, Atlantis. I’ll be posting about each shade individually over the coming weeks, plus any more that I end up buying, but today’s NOTD is Fashion Icon.

Blue and purple are two of my favourite and most worn colours, so I was immediately drawn to this beautiful shade. Fashion Icon has a purple base with a blue duochrome effect, and is packed full of micro glitter, some of which is holographic. I find this shade so mesmerizing as it looks different every time I look at it. It goes from electric blue to grape purple to bright violet in one movement, whilst all the time remaining strikingly sparkly.

All of my swatches show three thin coats, with no base coat or top coat, which I think looks great, but I bet it’d look just as gorgeous layered over a deep purple shade.

I’ve also found Fashion Icon to be impressively hard-wearing. Despite spending the whole day cleaning, unpacking boxes and generally being busy, my nails look just as good as they did when I first painted them.

I can really see this wonderful shade becoming one of my all time favourite glitters, and I can’t wait to swatch Rockstar to see if it’s as stunning as this one.

Barry M’s Glitterati nail paints cost £3.99 each, and are available in store and online from Superdrug and Boots, and online from Barry M.

Well, after two busy weeks of starting a new full time job and planning for a house move, I’m finally back to blogging! Today’s post features two China Glaze shades that were kindly gifted to me by nailpolish.co.uk for review.

Both shades are from the new China Glaze 2014 Autumn collections, and retail for £4.95 each. There are two autumn collections this year – All Aboard Fall and Apocalypse of Colour, and I picked a shade from each.

‘Choo-Choo Choose You’ is from the All Aboard Fall 2014 collection, which includes twelve stunning, on trend autumnal shades. At first glance the varnish looks to be a blue-grey shade with a hint of gold shimmer, but as soon as you move into natural light it explodes with purple, orange and green.

The varnish is a colour changing metallic, which with some brands makes for a streaky finish, but this one goes on perfectly without any imperfections. The formula is slightly runny, but applies nicely and two coats gives an opaque look. The only downside is it takes a little longer to dry than I’d like, but it’s worth the wait.

‘Rest In Pieces’ is from the Apocalypse of Colour collection, which features five Halloween themed shades, all of which have brilliant names! Halloween is my favourite time of year so I was very excited about this range, and it doesn’t disappoint. ‘Rest In Pieces’ is a gorgeous metallic orange, black and gold holographic glitter that reminds me of pumpkins, autumnal leaves and fireworks. Some of my absolute favourite things!

The glitter comprises of various different types of glitter, large flecks, small flecks, micro and straw, which gives fantastic depth and texture. For maximum impact, the varnish is best applied in a dabbing motion rather than brushing, as dabbing leaves more glitter behind. This one dries a lot quicker than the other shade, and makes an amazing top coat. Perfect for adding a little something extra to any autumn mani! I love it.

nailpolish.co.uk is a one stop shop for nail varnish, and they stock a HUGE range of brands, including OPI, Essie and Barry M, and over 350 colours! They also offer free first class delivery on every order. Check them out here.

What do you think of these new China Glaze shades?

Naomi x

*These two China Glaze nail varnishes were sent to me by nailpolish.co.uk for review purposes. All opinions expressed are honest and my own.*

Turn on the TV, scroll through social media, or open any magazine or newspaper on any given day, and you’re almost guaranteed to find a negative statement about how someone looks. Bodies and appearances are being shamed left, right and centre, and quite frankly I’m sick of it. Too fat, too thin, too hairy, not enough hair, too much make up, not enough make up, bad fashion sense etc etc. Basically, the media tries to sell us a completely unattainable and contradictory standard of “perfection”, and trying to achieve this impossible look just leads to unhappiness and low self-esteem. So, when Penny of Lillies and Love launched her #bodyUNashamed project, I knew I had to take part.

Penny’s project is simple, and aims to promote positivity and body confidence in all of us, whilst trying to put an end to body shaming and bullying, and it starts with bloggers like myself. Everyone taking part has been paired with another blogger, and must highlight three things about that person that are great, before highlighting three things about themselves that they love. I’ve been paired with Jan Ennis of StayHappyBeaut, and as soon as I saw her Twitter feed I knew it would be easy to find three great things about her.

1. Jan’s bio states that she is “obsessed with the value of a positive mindset”, and encourages us all to “stay happy stay beautiful”. Such infectious positivity is a really wonderful thing to have, and is perfect for this project as it promotes happiness and confidence, which can be difficult to achieve when we’re constantly being bombarded with negativity. Well done Jan for being such a positive person, and for advocating positivity in the rest of us!

2. Jan also has really pretty eyes! They look so striking and kind in her Twitter profile picture, and her eye make up also looks fab.

3. Her hair is gorgeous. The colour, the length, the style, the way it falls – it just suits her so much, and she knows how to dress to make the most of it. I wish I could get mine to look so nice!

A few years ago, I would have struggled to find three things about myself that I love, but over the past few years, particularly since starting this blog, my self-confidence has grown, and I’m now really content with myself. So here are my three things…

2. I’ve always been the “tall one” – at school I was taller than my friends and I’m one of the tallest people in my family, and it bothered me for years. I always felt like I looked the odd one out and hated all the “wow you’re tall!” comments I’d get, but recently I’ve been embracing my height. So what if I’m 5’10″? If I want to wear heels, I’ll wear heels! Admittedly I still have issues finding trousers and jeans to fit my 36″ inside leg, but at least I have the advantage of being able to see over everyone’s heads at the cinema/concerts/crowds!

3. I’m also quite proud of my current level of fitness. A few years ago I was slightly overweight, which in itself wasn’t a problem, but it was affecting my health. I have mild asthma, but it was made a lot worse by my excess weight, and I got out of breath very quickly. I worked hard to improve my diet and lifestyle, and have since lost weight, which has led to me becoming a lot healthier. My asthma is now pretty much non-existent, and I can do so much more than I used to be able to.

If you want to join in with Penny’s #bodyUNashamed project, then please do! Compliment people whenever you can. Smile at people in the street. Call people out for body shaming others. Make a stand to the media for doing the same. And most importantly, be proud of who you are! Everyone is unique and that’s what makes us beautiful, so recognise your positive attributes and show them to the world!

After weeks of waiting, training and getting sponsorship, yesterday the Sport Relief Mile finally came around! All over the country people were running a mile in order to raise money for those in need, and after beating my fundraising target by £7, I couldn’t wait to get running. I won’t lie, I was a little bit nervous as I’d never actually ran a full mile before, but there’s a first time for everything.

At 10am, my family and I headed down to Leicester Race Course and were met with an exciting atmosphere of sun, music and happy people. After a bit of a warm up, the runners had to follow a marching band down to the race track for the run to begin. I was running on my own, and was slightly daunted by the size of the track, but when the horn sounded off I went…

(I’m the one in the red trousers with the silly face).

Despite it being the warmest day of the year so far, I managed to run the mile without any issues! I had to stop twice to tie my trousers tighter, but other than that I hardly walked any of the mile at all and ran all the way. It took me about ten minutes to run the mile and I was presented with a lovely medal at the end.

I’m very proud of myself for doing this and I’m so happy that the money I have raised will be going to an excellent cause. I’m already looking forward to my next run in July – the 5k Race For Life for Cancer Research UK. I better get training!

Thank you to everyone who sponsored me and showed me support, I am forever grateful.